A desktop app for comparing folders and files. Point it at two directories, see exactly what changed, and copy the differences across — line by line or whole files at a time.
Free, open source, and runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Download the file for your platform from the latest release.
| Platform | File |
|---|---|
| macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon) | *-darwin-universal-dmg.dmg |
| Windows | *-windows-x86_64-nsis-setup.exe or *-msi.msi |
| Linux | *-linux-x86_64-appimage.AppImage or *-deb.deb |
These builds are unsigned, so your system will warn you the first time you open it:
- macOS — "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified." Right-click
the app → Open → Open. Or run
xattr -cr /Applications/SameButDifferent.app. - Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC." Click More info → Run anyway.
- Linux — make the AppImage executable first:
chmod +x SameButDifferent-*.AppImage.
Signing certificates cost money and this is a free tool. If you'd rather not trust a binary, build it yourself — it's two commands.
Pick Folders on the home screen, choose a directory for each side, and hit compare. You get a merged tree where every row is colour-coded:
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🟢 Green | Identical on both sides |
| 🟠 Orange | Exists on both sides, contents differ |
| 🔵 Blue | Only on the left |
| 🟣 Purple | Only on the right |
Folders roll up their contents, so a collapsed directory showing orange means something inside it changed. Click any differing file to open it side by side.
Pick Files instead to jump straight into a diff of two specific files — handy when they have different names or live in unrelated places.
The file view gives you:
- Syntax highlighting, picked automatically from the file extension
- Copy chevrons (← →) in the centre gutter to move a single change to the other side
- Direct editing on either side — it's a real editor, not a static view
- A minimap on the right showing every difference in the file; click a tick to jump
- Up/down arrows to step through changes one at a time
Nothing is written to disk until you press Save. Close with unsaved edits and it asks first.
- Images render side by side.
- PDFs render side by side using your system's PDF viewer.
- Binaries open as a paged hex dump, so you can still see where bytes diverge.
Open Settings (⚙️, top right) to control what gets compared.
Exclude list — one entry per line, either a plain name or a glob:
node_modules skips any folder or file with that exact name
*.log skips every file ending in .log
.DS_Store skips those files everywhere in the tree
Excluding a folder skips everything inside it. Sensible defaults come preloaded
(.git, node_modules, target, dist, __pycache__, and friends) — Reset
defaults brings them back if you overwrite them.
Respect .gitignore — on by default. When enabled, files your .gitignore excludes
are left out of the comparison. Turn it off to see everything.
One gotcha worth knowing:
.gitignoreonly takes effect inside an actual git repository, and it applies to each side independently. If you compare a git checkout against a plain copied folder, the checkout side gets filtered and the copy doesn't — which makes identical files look like they only exist on one side. If a comparison looks wrong, this toggle is the first thing to check.
- Editor theme — a set of light and dark themes, with a live preview.
- Highlight changed characters — marks the exact characters that differ within a changed line, not just the whole line.
- Show copy buttons — hide the gutter chevrons if you want a read-only feel.
Settings and your recent comparisons persist between launches. The home screen keeps a list of recent pairs so you can jump back into one with a click.
- Comparison is fast on big trees because it avoids reading files it doesn't need to. Different sizes settle it immediately; matching size and timestamp is assumed identical; only genuine ambiguity falls through to hashing both files.
- Saves are atomic. Changes are written to a temporary file and then swapped into place, so a crash or a full disk can't leave you with a half-written file.
- Matching is by name and path. A file that was renamed or moved shows up as one deletion plus one addition, not as a rename.
- Two-way only for now. Three-way comparison is planned.
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. See DEVELOPER.md for setup, tests, and how the internals fit together.
MIT — © Yaniv Kalsky